The Sketchbook Challenge!

So, you want to start keeping a sketchbook but every time you sit down with your book in front of you and pencil in hand you freeze up and just can't seem to get started.  Wouldn't it be helpful to get a glimpse inside another artist's sketchbook and see how they use theirs?  Well, you are in luck because help is on the way!  I'm excited to tell you that I have been invited to join an amazing group of artists in The Sketchbook Challenge.  The Sketchbook Challenge is a new project launching on 1/1/11.  Follow along with us as we fill our sketchbooks based on a monthly theme that will be announced on the first of each month.
You will be sketching alongside:
Jill Berry
Sue Bleiweiss
Laura Cater-Woods
Jane Davies
Jamie Fingal
Judi Hurwitt
myself
Lyric Kinard
Jane LaFazio
Kelli Perkins
Carol Sloan
Carla Sonheim
Susan Sorrell
Melanie Testa
Diana Trout
Violette

Each month we'll announce a new theme on the blog and will be showing images from our sketchbooks
and talking about the intention/inspiration behind them.  We hope to inspire our followers to keep sketchbooks of your own.  Please visit the blog for more details, as well as to pick up a badge for your own blog.  We hope our followers will post comments on our blog, as well as images on your blogs of your pages.  Along the way we will be doing some giveaways and special offers!  I hope you will join us!

Cool new (for me) gel pens

I took a journal workshop in Chicago @ CREATE with Dawn Sokol.  In the class we learned how to make our own books from old hardcover books by removing the original pages and stitching in our own page stock.  I made a book with two "signatures", meaning two sections of stitched pages.
Of course, I had to make it complicated.  I used a variety of oddities:  watercolor paper, maps, old pattern sleeves, and even some polyester sheer that I laminated with paper through a thermofax screen.

In addition to learning how to construct a book, which thrilled me, Dawn introduced me to Sakura gel pens.  The ones we were given in the workshop were the souffle pens.  The ink behaves as puff paint after you write on a surface.  Very cool.
I ordered a couple of additional packages when I returned home, and just got around to playing with them a few days ago.
One of the pleasant surprises was the set of opaque pens:  I found that I could write on a boarding pass that I "ruined" by heating and turning the paper black.  No problem now:  I wrote on the page with my white pen!  The other happy surprise is that I can write on the laminated areas of my sheer and the script shows!
I tried various other types of pens and markers and the script didn't show up.
Take a look:

Here is a page with writing using the Sakura Souffle pens

Here is the laminated sheer, turned to left

Here is the laminated sheer with Sakura opaque pen scribblings.

Pretty cool stuff

Article in Quilting Arts magazine (Issue #44)

look for my article, "Silk-screen fabric with 

everyday objects" in the current issue of QA magazine!

I made an interesting discovery about a year ago when, in a deconstructed screen-printing workshop with Kerr Grabowski, I began using disposable facial washcloths under the screen.  The article in Quilting Arts discusses this process.  I'll be interested to know what you think about it, so please give me some feedback if you are a subscriber.

This construction is a combination of facial cloths and silk broadcloth,

the quilted piece is mounted onto a painted, gold-leafed, stretched canvas

detail

A cute little poem about the post-holiday duldrums

My friend, Ellie, sent this poem to me and it made me laugh.  Enjoy!

   Christmas Treats

       'Twas the month after Christmas, and all through the house
          Nothing would fit me, not even a blouse.

            The cookies I'd nibbled, the eggnog I'd taste

            At the holiday parties had gone to my waist.

            When I got on the scales there arose such a number!

            When I walked to the store (less a walk than a lumber).

            I'd remember the marvelous meals I'd prepared;

            The gravies and sauces and beef nicely rared,

            The wine and the rum balls, the bread and the cheese

            And the way I'd not said, "No thank you, please."

            As I dressed myself in my husband's old shirt

            And prepared once again to do battle with dirt---

            I said to myself, as I only can

            "You can't spend a winter disguised as a man!"

            So--away with the last of the sour cream dip,

            Get rid of the fruit cake, every cracker and chip

            Every last bit of food that I like must be banished

            "Till all the additional ounces have vanished.

            I won't have a cookie--not even a lick.

            I'll want only to chew on a long celery stick.

            I won't have hot biscuits, or corn bread, or pie,

            I'll munch on a carrot and quietly cry.

            I'm hungry, I'm lonesome, and life is a bore---

            But isn't that what January is for?

            Unable to giggle, no longer a riot.

            Happy New Year to all and to all a good diet!